Candidate site selection for nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia using GIS
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Candidate site selection for nuclear power plants in Saudi Arabia using GIS Nada M. Al Osaimi 1 & Mofareh D. Qoradi 1 Received: 26 May 2020 / Accepted: 26 October 2020 / Published online: 13 November 2020 # Saudi Society for Geosciences 2020
Abstract Many countries prefer to use renewable and clean energy sources over fossil fuels as fossil fuels are limited and have a negative impact on the environment. Although there are diverse, renewable, and clean sources of energy, such as solar, wind, and geothermal, the low and variable productivity of these resources impedes their application. Conversely, nuclear energy is a reliable, stable, and safe source of energy. The International Atomic Energy Agency recommends the use of geographic information systems in site planning of nuclear plants. Accordingly, this study seeks to apply the technical capabilities of geographic information systems in building a geographical database as well as data processing and analysis to support the decision making and examination of suitable sites for nuclear reactor facilities. In this study, a spatial suitability analysis methodology based on the multi-criteria decision-making method was used to identify candidate areas with suitable spatial characteristics for nuclear reactor facilities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Moreover, vector modeling was used to successfully determine potential sites over an area of ~ 4442 km2 on the eastern coast (Al-Ahsa, Al-Adaid Governorate) and over an area of ~ 600 km2 on the western coast (Umloj, Yanbu, Rabigh, Al-Laith, and Baysh) of the Kingdom. Keywords Nuclear power plants . Suitability analysis . GIS . Saudi Arabia
Introduction and background Fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas remain the primary sources of energy and electricity in many communities. However, the combustion of fossil fuel is believed to be one component responsible for the acceleration of global warming, which could be catastrophic for life. Nevertheless, as the world depends on energy, it is moving away from the use of fossil fuels toward discovering more clean and sustainable sources (Alnuaimi 2015). Many countries are exploring the adoption of renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind, and geothermal, and methods to bring them to high levels of reliability and availability. Until availability considerations of renewable energy sources are solved, nuclear energy could help nations in diversifying their Responsible Editor: Biswajeet Pradhan * Nada M. Al Osaimi [email protected] 1
Geography Department, College of Arts, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
energy sources. For example, the fission of a metric ton of uranium provides a thermal energy equivalent to that obtained from the combustion of 3 million tons of coal or 12 million barrels of oil. The world’s oil and natural gas reserves have been estimated to be depleted by 2100 (Comby 2006). Considering such an estimate, in the future, the world may need to adopt nuclear energy at a larger scale. However, locations for nuclear plants sho
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